The Luminaries

‘How do you know that?’
    Anna did not reply, so Devlin said again, more sharply, ‘How do you know that, Miss Wetherell?’
    ‘I’ve been getting messages,’ Anna said at last.
    ‘From Mr. Staines?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘What kind of messages?’
    ‘They’re private.’
    ‘How does he communicate them?’
    ‘Not with words,’ said Anna.
    ‘How then?’
    ‘I just feel him.’
    ‘You feel him?’
    ‘Inside my head.’
    Devlin exhaled.
    ‘I suppose you doubt my word now,’ Anna said.
    ‘I most certainly do,’ Devlin said. ‘It goes rather hand in hand with your being a fraudster, I’m afraid.’
    Anna thumped a hand over the paper hidden in her breast. ‘You held onto
this
for a mighty long time,’ she said.
    Devlin glared at her. He opened his mouth to make a retort, but before he could find the words, he heard brisk steps upon the porch, and the rattle of the door handle, and the sudden noise of the street as the front door swung inwards, and someone walked in. Anna looked at Devlin with frightened eyes. The widow had returned from the Courthouse, and she was calling Anna’s name.

SATURN IN VIRGO
    In which George Shepard does not appoint a deputy; Quee Long is mistaken for another man; and Dick Mannering draws the line.
    George Shepard had spent the morning of the 20th of March supervising various deliveries of materials and hardware to the site of the future gaol-house at Seaview—which, two months into the project of its construction, was looking more and more imposing every day. The walls had gone up, the chimneys had been bricked, and inside the main residence the fortified doors had all been fitted and hung in their steel frames. There were still many details to be ironed out, of course—the lamps had yet to be delivered; the gaol-house kitchen still lacked a stove; there was still no glass in the gaoler’s cottage windows ; the pit beneath the gallows had not yet been dug—but all in all everything had moved splendidly quickly, thanks to Harald Nilssen’s four-hundred pound ‘donation’, and additional funding, finally paid out, from the Westland Public Works Committee, the Hokitika Council, and the Municipal Board. Shepard had predicted that the felons could be moved from the Police Camp before the end of April, and several of them already spent their nights upon the Seaview premises, watched over by Shepard, who preferred, now that the prison was so near completion, to sleep there also, and to take his suppers cold.
    When the bell in the Wesleyan chapel rang out noon Shepard was in the future asylum, digging an alternate pit for the latrine. Asthe sound of the bell drifted up from the town below the foreman called for the felons to break. Shepard put down his spade, wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve, and clambered bodily out of the hole—perceiving as he did so that a young ginger-haired man was standing on the far side of the iron gate, peering through the bars, and evidently waiting for an interview.
    ‘Mr. Everard,’ Shepard said, striding forward.
    ‘Gov. Shepard.’
    ‘What brings you up to Seaview this morning? Not idle curiosity , I think.’
    ‘I’d hoped to beg an audience with you, sir.’
    ‘I trust you haven’t been waiting long.’
    ‘Not at all.’
    ‘Do you wish to come in? I can call for the gate to be unlocked.’ Shepard was still perspiring from his recent exertion: he mopped his forehead a second time with his sleeve.
    ‘It’s all right,’ the man said. ‘I’ve only got a message.’
    ‘Deliver it,’ said Shepard. He placed his hands on his hips.
    ‘I’ve come on behalf of Mr. Barnes. Of Brunton, Solomon and Barnes.’
    ‘I do not know any of those men.’
    ‘They’re outfitters. They’ve a new warehouse,’ said Everard. ‘On Camp-street. Only the sign hasn’t been painted yet. Sir,’ he added hastily.
    ‘Continue,’ Shepard said, still with his hands on his hips.
    ‘A couple months back you made it known that you’d be very grateful for a watch to be placed on a certain Chinaman.’
    Shepard’s expression sharpened at once. ‘You remember rightly.’
    ‘I’m here to report to you that a Chinaman bought a pistol this morning,’ the young man said.
    ‘From Mr. Barnes’s establishment, I presume.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Where is this Chinaman now?’
    ‘I couldn’t tell you that,’ said Everard. ‘I saw Barnes just now, and he said he’d sold a Kerr Patent to a Chinaman this morning, and I came straight to you. I